Only one race and Chase in high gear

The first three winners under the Chase format all had major trouble at Daytona.
By REID SPENCER
SPORTING NEWS NASCAR WIRE SERVICE
FONTANA, Calif. -- There's a long list of proven NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers with a common hope -- that the conventional wisdom about the Cup season is true.
We've all heard it, that the season really starts at the second race of the year, in this case at California Speedway, which hosts the Auto Club 500 Sunday.
"It's just a total separation for me," Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick said of the distinction between the season opener and the remainder of the schedule. "You come down here [to Daytona] approaching this almost as a non-points race. You come into it racing as hard as you can and doing whatever it takes to try to win the Daytona 500.
Grind starts
"The grind starts [at California], and we'll go week-to-week from there."
Include Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch among those who might wish this year's Daytona 500 were a non-points race. The first three winners of the Nextel Cup championship under the Chase format all had major trouble at Daytona.
Johnson fought a tight handling condition for most of the day and eventually lost control of his No. 48 Chevy and wrecked exiting Turn 2 on Lap 174. He finished 39th. Busch and Stewart arguably had the two best cars on the track last Sunday, but Busch tapped Stewart in Turn 4 on Lap 153, sending both cars hurtling into the outside wall. They finished 41st and 43rd, respectively.
In addition, the last-lap melee that erupted behind Harvick and runner-up Mark Martin claimed three 2006 Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup competitors: Kyle Busch (24th), Matt Kenseth (27th) and Denny Hamlin (28th). Dale Earnhardt Jr. fell victim to an earlier wreck and finished 32nd. Kasey Kahne came home seventh, but 50 points lost for an infraction discovered in postqualifying inspection dropped the driver of the No. 9 Dodge to 22nd in the points standings.
Indicator
Needless to say, a strong finish at Fontana would help any of the drivers that fortune didn't favor at Daytona. But don't put too much emphasis on the Daytona results. The last time Stewart finished 43rd there he went on to win the championship.
There's good news for last Sunday's also-rans when it comes to Harvick's Nextel Cup performance at California Speedway. In nine starts, Harvick does have a sixth and a ninth to his credit at Fontana, but he also has five finishes of 25th or worse.
According to NASCAR's loop data statistics, Harvick's driver rating of 80.2 at Fontana places him 16th among fellow Cup drivers, well behind the top two drivers, Roush Fenway teammates Kenseth (110.1) and Greg Biffle (108.0).